Publishing News 2024 of the Capuchin Historical Institute

In view of the fifth centenary of the birth of the Order of Capuchin Friars Minor, the Capuchin Historical Institute opens a new series among its publications (Scriptores et Scripta Ordinis Fratrum Capuccinorum). As we know, the origin of the Order date back to January-February 1525, when Matteo da Bascio initiated a new form of life, approved by the Apostolic Penitentiary on May 18, 1526, and confirmed by Clement VII with the bull Religionis zelus on July 3, 1528.

Three historical essays by Br. Édouard d'Alençon are collected in the volume “The Origins of the Order of Capuchin Friars Minor and the Serious Difficulties of the Early Years 1525-1541.” In the first, The Origins of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin 1525-1534, the historical sources, motivations and events that led to the birth of a new Franciscan reform in the first decades of the sixteenth century are analyzed. The second essay, The Serious Difficulties of the Early Years 1534-1541, deals with the external obstacles placed in the way of the settling and development of the Capuchin reform within the framework of the larger Franciscan family, and the serious internal obstacles, with reference to the celebration of the General Chapter in Rome in two sessions, in November 1535 and September 1536, and the prodromes of the "Ochinoan tzunami." The third essay is dedicated to Bernardino Ochino (still an Observant) and the origin of the Capuchins, Gian Pietro Carafa bishop of Chieti (Paul IV) and the reform in the Order of the Friars Minor of the Observance.
First published a few decades ago, the three studies (of which the first two are in Latin) have not lost their originality and must be considered entirely up-to-date, especially since they are based on many years of archival investigation and extensive documentary research, which has been broadly extended and conducted both in the Central Archives of the Church and the Order and in numerous local archives and libraries, the results of which are duly analyzed and historically evaluated and presented.

About the author

Édouard d'Alençon, (given name: François-Dominique-Marie Lecorney), was born on April 10, 1859. He made his religious profession with the Capuchins of the Province of Paris on January 6, 1880. In 1885 he was called to oversee the journal Annales Franciscaines. From 1892 he was General Archivist of the Order in Rome and editor of the Analecta Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum. Elected provincial definitor and guardian of Paris in 1914, he was then appointed general definitor of the Order in 1924; in 1926 he was sent to Assisi, where the foundation of the Historical Institute of the Capuchins was planned and later erected in 1930. Returning to Rome because of serious health problems, he died on September 1, 1928. 

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